When the day begins in the company of chickens, it seems almost probable that I would write about the earth-shattering facts I learned about baby chickens…. all before 10 a.m.

Apparently, it is a necessary thing for the life of a baby chicken, to keep its butt clean. Now… I write this with apprehension.   You see, I am a city girl.  But I am keen on the whole cow-tipping / snipe-hunting traditions.  Yet, this morning, as I was cleaning baby chicken butts… of course the suspicion entered my mind that this was some kind of big City-Girl-Joke.

But alas,  Mary led the way in the poultry hygiene endeavors.  And for those of you who don’t know…. if baby chicken butts get all covered in the crusties.. it becomes impossible for them to poop like a chicken ought to.  And if this goes untreated, the baby chicken will die.  And we can’t have that.  Therefore, we were the proud participants in the laundering of the hen heineys.

But I SWORE I was not going to write about that… so I won’t.   Nope.  No way. No how.

Instead, I will talk about another significant event of the day.  The warmth.  Oh what a joyous and wonderful thing the heat is.    It feels miraculous to me.  I can’t help but to recollect the days of the cold winter, the gray, the ice, snow, the freeze-your-butt-off-feeling every morning when I walked outside. This warmy kind of weather is so much easier on me. It just feels good to be outside, and to basque in the sun; to feel the breeze on my face and on my arms. It feels good to open up my shoulders and breathe, instead of  hunching over and pulling up tight…. in a cold little ball.

This sun-a-shining is what dreams are made of.  We had some very good friends over for dinner.  I cooked.  I made 4-Js Pizza from Camden appear on our table.. thanks to the best pizza maker EVER… Denise Richards. (You Rock)

Anyway… our friends.  We walked around the property, fed the chickens, and the fish, looked at a large nest, had a little campfire, asked the 8-Ball all sorts of questions, and ate outdoors.  Lovely.

Now imagine how difficult this would have been at -10 degrees F.  Not nearly as good.  Not good at all… in fact.

Yes.  Summer in the City is good.  Summer in the Country is even better.  The fish are fed, the air smells of burning campfire wood… and the chicken butts are as clean as The Tidy-Bowl Man’s Swimming Pool…. all of this in the warmth of the glorious sun.

Even better, all of this…. in the warmth of glorious friends.

Some days.. ….. Life Is Good.

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
― Elbert Hubbard

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. “Pooh?” he whispered.
“Yes, Piglet?”
“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s hand. “I just wanted to be sure of you.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh